Say you’re a therapist facing a group of kids who aren’t particularly thrilled about the prospect of going through therapy or whatever it is their parents wanted them to do with you. But you want to help them develop and practice social skills, help them engage in more productive ways of thinking, and generally better equip them to deal with whatever brought them in to your office. How do you get these people engaged in therapy?
How about you put on a wizard hat and then pass out some 20-sided dice, character sheets, and miniatures?
This is the approach that many therapists are taking to reach their clients. For sure, therapists have been using games in therapy forever, but many have discovered that tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons offer things that checkers, Monopoly, and Candyland never could. And what’s more, they’re devising ways to create streamlined versions of these role-playing games and resources for other therapists who are new to the concept but want to learn.
These are the things I’ll talk about with this episode’s guests, who do this sort of thing for a non-profit organization called Game To Grow.
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Show Notes:
Audio Credits:
- “Robot Motivation” by The Polish Ambassador, licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0